


Black Fitted Dresspants

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, bartender jaehyun, business man taeyong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: In which Taeyong cares too much about fashion and Jaehyun's just the cute bartender.





	1. Chapter 1

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             It was one thing to go to the wedding, but shuffling around in the same spot in a freshly pressed black suit was another thing entirely.

The music was not suitable- the last song ended up being some 80s gem that Taeyong’s sure he sang kareoke of.

Probably with him, with Leeteuk, who’s currently about to be buried beneath six feet of dirt.

 

Taeyong swishes his glass of white wine around at the after reception. He doesn’t particularily stick out; all the people around him have the same type of suit fitted metticulously, all of them have gelled hair and hardened eyes that dim with boredom.

Taeyong doesn’t particularily feel like getting haunted by the ghost of his work superior but some things about Leeteuk were just downright annoying- while he was alive, at least.

Now, the only complaints Taeyong has are on the sharpness of the wine which is far too much to stomach, it all seems to dilute at the top and stick to the bottom of the glass like oil laced with acetone.

Taeyong isn’t exactly a funeral veteran- the last one he attended was niece’s and that was much more emotional. It almost feels like the family care about their image just as much as the small horde of people who wish promotions upon themselves. If it was up to them, they’d probably just cremate the body and be done with it, but who wants to look apathetic to the press?

 

“Turning in?” says Taeyong, just now approaching his closest friend at the firm. 

 

Yuta smiles and undoes his black bowtie “Who knows?” - that means yes. No one gives a straight answer around here, especially not Yuta.

 

“Where to?” they’re standing by the table of crescent rolls and devilled eggs that have been there too long to be consumable. The light that hits the bottle of red wine resting against the wall is muted by the dusty windows. Yuta doesn’t know this but it’s painfully obvious how much he was rushing to leave.

 

“The bar, coming?” Yuta has the audacity to say with a beer in his right hand( his left is still burnt from the incident at the thaiwonese restaurant they visited).

 

Taeyong checks his gloriously tacky silver watch. “I think i’ll stick around,” he says even though it wasn’t a matter of the time in the first place.

 

“Figured.”

 

“What do you mean?” he frowns, Yuta shaking his head so his patchy maroon hair flips. 

 

“Typical Taeyong, you care too much,” and that’s the end of that; he walks out the side door.

  
  
  
  


It’s not food for thought, Taeyong knows he cares too much anyway. That’s why he’s here. That’s why they’re all here, even Yuta- though his concern is fleeting.

  
  
  


He leaves with scuffed shoes that were accidently stood on by too many little kids. He needs something to wash the taste of the wine out of his mouth, he needs something to make his liver detiriorate.

There’s a bar- he’s seen it from across the gravelstone courtyard in the middle of the place

. 

_ It’s kind of shit, _ Ten had said about it when he snook out during Leeteuk’s wedding reception.

_ Still better than the mop-bucket wine they serve at reception, though. I bet they reuse it to strip paint. _

 

_ What paint? _ Taeyong had asked and the only answer he’d gotten was a shrug and a half-smile.

  
  
  


Oddly enough, Taeyong loves sitting down, it’s a calculated action he performs wherever he is. He’s seriously up his own ass about his whole ‘vintage style’ thing, which involves tight-loose trousers that are rolled up at the ends, clip on ties, brown leather shoes that point at the end. Well. brown leather everything.

He sits at the metal barstool, watching with too-great satisfaction as his trouser legs lift up to reveal his ankles, his grey socks and  **black** leather shoes that narrow at the top, still scuffed. elegance.

  
  


_ It’s vintage,  _ he had said to Taeil, curious Taeil who didn’t understand the first thing about sweatervests and showing off your ankles with perfectly fitted trousers. Taeil had rolled his eyes so dramatically that they almost rolled out onto the sticky table of the booth.

_ It’s okay if you don’t get it, not a lot of people do. _

Taeil has potential in his fashion choices- he’s the kind to attract art fanatics who were forced to go into business by their families, because he managed to make baggy, yellowed sweaters look classy. He wears his pair of obscenely tight jeans into work every day like the required business suit and gets away with it because he’s  _ Taeil _ and he almost always has sweet intentions.

  
  


The lights are barely on- whether they’re broken or “setting an atmosphere” Taeyong doesn’t know, but they cast a red tint on the dark wood that his hands rest on.

His fingers are just a bit too short for his palms, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, if anything he should have long fingers like those models that people compare him to. The nails are bitten off and snaggled, his hands are cold, according to his ex girlfriend. 

 

The bartender isn’t paying attention, which is fine, Taeyong’s the only one at the bar. Well, him and a group of girls in a booth by the window passing around a bottle of schnapps.

Taeyong is the one paying attention, paying attention to the bartender’s presumed baby face and light brown perm. Perms are  _ very _ vintage, according to every vinyl fanatic Taeyong has had the mispleasure of encountering on the internet. He agrees when he sees the baggy white shirt the man’s sporting- tucked into his perfectly fitted black dress pants that would lift to expose his ankles if he sat down. If Taeyong leans over the counter just a bit he can see pointy black shoes, too. It’s a yes from him.

 

“Drink?” bartender boy says, just now taking notice of him, he grabs a rag from under the counter and begins polishing an already-polished glass. Taeyong gets it; he needs to prove he’s working.

 

“What’s the sweetest wine you have?” 

 

Taeyong get’s a glass of chenin blanc. He swishes it around in the glass between sips, wondering when he should head back to the funeral. Probably soon, he can afford this wine but he can’t afford the things he has his mind set on, but if he plays it right his paycheck will get higher.

 

Leeteuk’s dead, which means his position’s now open. Everyone wants it- that’s why they’re even at the funeral service- they want to look good to the executives that decide everything, they want to look respectable and like ‘team players’ and Taeyong really deserves the job, doesn’t he?

Ten could get it, honestly. He goes for pinstriped suits that don’t look good on anyone but him, he sucks up to the bosses and most importantly he’s charismatic and friends with everyone. When he wears novelty ties it’s not ‘tasteless’ but ‘typical Ten’. Taeyong would have no trouble being happy for Ten if he gets it. Its only a matter of time.

 

“What are you avoiding?” Taeyong snaps out of his trance to see bartender boy leaning against the counter, talking to him.

“What do you mean?” replies Taeyong, just a bit skeptical.

 

“Everyone who comes here is avoiding some sort of event. What’s your story?” bartender boy is facing away from Taeyong, not sure why, but  his shirt’s so tight Taeyong can see the top disc of his spine pushing against the fabric.

 

“Oh. don’t judge me for this,” Taeyong holds his hand in front of his mouth even though bartender boy’s not looking. It’s a nervous habit to hide his teeth. “I’m here instead of at a funeral reception.”

 

Bartender boy laughs so prettily that it  _ has _ to be practiced. 

Ten’s the same- he giggles daintily one minute and the next he’s wheezing up half his lung.

Taeil’s supposedly never laughed in his life and Taeyong has no grounds to prove this statement wrong. And Yuta… Yuta was a special case- once they sat in a theater, not at all formal, they were watching some shitty romcom that was neither romantic nor funny.  Yuta had taken it upon himself to become the human equivalent to a squeaky rubber duck and it was alll  _ fake _ of course. He was the only person in the theater laughing until soda sprayed out of his nose and all onto the bald person that was sitting in front of them. Then, Ten was laughing too, clutching his sides as he coughed unnattractively. A blonde security guard escorted all four of them to the door in what was not one of Taeyong’s finest moments. Taeil still hasn’t lived it down.

So, for a group of people so eager to please at work, they were awfully reckless.

 

“Does the laugh mean you’re judging me?” asks Taeyong, smiling despite himself.

 

“It’s entirely possible,” bartender boy turns around and sort of folds himself over the counter to put emphasis on his nametag that Taeyong’s sure wasn’t there before.  _ Jaehyun. _ “It depends on who the… ghost? Is,” he says, and he’s grinning. It’s crooked but his cheeks have dimples that Taeyong feels the sudden urge to poke. He keeps his hands hanging by his sides.

 

“My boss,” Taeyong shrugs.

 

“So you’re one of  _ those  _ people?”

 

“What people?”

 

“People who only care about their image, or were you close with your boss?”

 

“Not at all,” says Taeyong, pushing his wine glass away because Jaehyun’s so close he could nudge it over the counter at any second. “In fact, the opposite.”

 

“I was right then,” Jaehyun reaches for the glass and fills it with more wine even though Taeyong never asked. “What was he like?”

 

Taeyong thinks about Leeteuk, the bane of his existence for the past two years he’s been in office. “To be blunt, he was a dick.” Leeteuk cared about his family just as much as they cared about the fact that he was dead, as in, not at all. It was tragic for sure.

 

“Do you  _ want  _ to get haunted? You can’t just insult the dead!” and Jaehyun’s smile betrays his serious tone. It’s astounding.

 

“I’m not insulting the dead! If anything, he’s less annoying now,” Taeyong replies and they both laugh, Jaehyun especially, who’s obviously interested because it really wasn’t all that funny. Taeyong pushes back these thoughts with a sip of his refilled wine, which is surprisingly dry for a liquid. He quickly abandons it when he pushes it away from Jaehyun who still might knock it over, he knows he’s not the one paying anyway.

 

“You going back?” Jaehyun asks, taking the hint and pouring the wine down the grate that, according to Ten, leads to the bucket they collect paint stripper in.

 

Taeyong tilts his head. “Back where?”

 

“The reception.”

 

Taeyong’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’, because he pretty much lost track of the time. One look to the now dark sky and he’s answering with “Doubt it. Do you have anything non-alcoholic?” no shame- he doesn’t want to go to work hung over tomorrow, especially when he’s going to get called up to the board so they can tell him he’s been promoted. At least, if everything goes according to plan.

 

They like Taeyong; they always have. He’s precise in his actions and he follows all the regulations that he memorised back to back on his second day. He has an even split between social life and work life and they never cross, except once, when he had a one night stand with a girl from another department. She moved to canada a while back, something about being bullied on the job. That kind of stuff happens all the time.

 

90 percent chance of getting promoted. He talks to his superiors like old friends, the ones with complexes see him as their son when he drops off a ‘personal’ christmas card or a caluclated bottle of sake. He’s loved.

 

Jaehyun pours him a glass of water with an obscenely shiny smirk. “We could drink, you know,” he says as he passes the glass over with some ice cubes and a red paper umbrella. “If you want to.”

 

“We?” Taeyong says, not giving him the satisfaction of reacting to the glass of water. He accepts it and even stirs the cubes around with the umbrella’s cocktail stick. 

 

“You heard me- are we not flirting already?” and it’s not a question really. Jaehyun knows this, too.

 

“Sure we are,” Taeyong takes a sip of his alcohol-free drink and checks his phone where he got an upset text from Ten.

 

_.did u and Yuta srsly leave already??leaving me here with Taeil??hes wearing yellow shoes.its embarassing _

Taeyong chuckles to himself, of course Taeil’s wearing yellow shoes at a funeral, the girls will eat up his sob story about how he  _ wanted  _ to do film design but his parents made him do architecture, which is strange because architecture is almost just as useless and way more soulless. Taeyong’s not convinced.

Once they went to this bar in Daegu when they were on a business trip, it was dark and rusty and they sat at a booth near the back with brandy stains on the seat. When they sat down they realised Taeil was gone, it took a few minutes of looking before they spotted him talking to a waiter with a red ponytail that was gesturing excitedly as she spoke.  _ Deaf or over-eager? _ Taeyong had thought until Taeil finally returned.

_ What did she want?  _ Yuta had asked, most definitely jealous.

_ She was asking where i got my bag,  _ Taeil shrugged, slinging it down underneath the stool-of-a-table. It was orangey yellow, of course, with weird wavy lines and two english words in block print. How could Taeil pull off something like that?

 

_.Went home, sorry _ Taeyong texts back. He does not need Ten to waltz into the bar looking for him and stealing Jaehyun away with his ‘boyish charm’ that he thinks he has ( he’s right, but Taeyong’s not going to admit it).

 

“When does your shift end?” Taeyong asks and Jaehyun catches the intention behind his words, judging by how he flexes his arms while passing it off as stretching. 

 

“Whenever,” he shrugs, leaning against the counter again, arms folded and hands propped up to his pale face. “The rules are pretty loose here.”

 

“Sounds too good to be true.”

 

“It is, i still have twenty minutes left,” says Jaehyun, tight lipped smile. Twenty minutes, Taeyong checks his phone- 18:10. He’s been in the bar for close to a half an hour already.

 

“Tell me about yourself,” he says while he busies himself with checking more of his messages. He’s the kind that people project themselves onto, he has too many contacts that messasge him for some pity about their current situation or things they want to hear. For example, taehyung from his finance course in college texts him about his troubles with his boss that’s almost as bad as Leeteuk. He says  _ you have a good boss, you wouldnt get how annoying it is _ because he never really asks and Taeyong never really tells. It’s fine, certainly not his fault.

 

“Well,” Jaehyun starts, pushing a stray curl out of his eyes. “I’m 23, a bartender,” he laughs dryly “i still have student loans to pay off so i live with a few friends to split rent. Your turn.”

 

“Why do you have student loans?” asks Taeyong, probably naiively. He never had them- he did business which meant he did financing, and that turned him off the idea for life. 

 

“My friend  _ really _ wanted to go to australia over summer break, and he convinced me,” Jaehyun says fondly. 

 

“So you took out a… loan? Did you realise how much interest that racks up?”

 

“Doyoung can be very convincing.”

 

Theres a silence before Taeyong clears his throat and speaks again. “I’m Taeyong, 25, i hate talking about my job and,” he pauses to sip his drink “this feels an awful lot like speed dating, doesn’t it?”

 

Jaehyun snorts “i suppose it does.”

 

Taeyong finishes his glass of water in the time Jaehyun has left on the job. They both realise at once when a girl with a pink bubble jacket and bobbed hair bursts in the door.

“Am i late?” she asks, she obviously ran; cheeks red, taking deep breaths.

 

“Almost,” Jaehyun replies with an amused smile. He turns to Taeyong. “Would you mind waiting for me outside? I’ll only be a minute.”

  
  


It’s cold and Taeyong doesn’t have anything resembling a coat. He has his suit jacket which is thin, the tails of it flap in the wind as he stands watching an intern for the caterer emptying the bins on the other side of the courtyard. Jaehyun takes longer than a minute before he stumbles out the door.

 

“Sorry,” he says with a sheepish smile. “I had to get my coat.”

His coat is agreeable in the way that it’s properly fitted, black leather that girls in 80s films would appreciate. Taeyong may have found a similarity between himself and that type of girl, his gaze lingers a little too long and Jaehyun definitely notices. 

It occurs to Taeyong as they walk straight down the middle of the courtyard that they have no idea where they’re actually going.

 

“Who’s place?” he asks, because he’s not into the whole motel scene. Ten’s scared him away from that with his story of ‘The Cleaning Incident’, something about breaking the bed and having to run out in the middle of the night. Ten refuses to explain what really happened.

 

“My roomates are definitely home- they’re practically reclusive,” says Jaehyun, swinging his arms by his sides. 

 

“What are you, then?”

 

“The only one with a social life.”

 

Taeyong learns that Jaehyun can drive( thank god- he doesn’t particularily feel like getting the bus home), when he’s lead to a carpark a block away. 

“parking’s free here,” Jaehyun had explained while he rooted through his pockets for his car keys.

It was a blue hyundai, the hallmark of student life, all dust and tar on the tires. Jaehyun insists it hasn’t ever broken down while he laughs about the state of his busted side mirrors. Taeyong tries to focus on the directions but it’s hard in the rickety hunk of scrap metal Jaehyun insists is fine. At one point, as Jaehyun swerves around a corner while the grip on the tires almost sends them flying over the dashboard, Taeyong sees his life flash before his eyes. 

It consists of work, mostly, of Leeteuk being awful and Taeil rolling his eyes a  _ lot _ **_._ **

And it’s over when Jaehyun pulls into the carpark that has barely any cars about. It’s more because of seediness than exclusivity, Taeyong’s blind with the executives. What they don’t get to see, Taeyong doesn’t worry about. He lives in an officetel and no one really has to know.

 

Besides Jaehyun, who’s saying “nice place,” out of politeness as he holds the door open for him. It’s a small gesture, and just a bit cheesy, but Taeyong goes along with it because of the way Jaehyun looks at him.

 

“It’s mostly about work,” says Taeyong. He throws his suitjacket onto the wirerack by the door. It falls between a starchy white shirt and fitted brown dresspants. 

 

“Already stripping? I didn’t think you were that eager,” Jaehyun laughs. He’s scanning the hall/sitting room. It’s not much to look at, Taeyong knows, aside from some old movie posters- framed. He doesn’t like that cluttered look.

 

(Thank god Yuta moved out)

 

“It’s too early for that,” says Taeyong, walking to the kitchen, who knows what he’ll find in his fridge?

That’s the thing. It’s never fully stocked with the stuff he actually needs, pots of convenience store creme brulee, a bottle of half-drank soju, an old slice of lemon cheesecake that’s being saved “for later”. He takes out the beer even though it’s not much. Jaehyun is obviously above drunk sex, and Taeyong could be too, if he didn’t hook up at clubs. A booth, maybe, Yuta with some other girl draped around his side, a girl with long hair that he can play with as he boasts about fantasy football, something he’ll never get Taeyong to care about.

 

As things go, they end up watching a movie. They’re not a soppy audience, Jaehyun hasn’t got his face tucked against the crook of Taeyong’s neck, they’re not frisky either. No heavy petting.

It’s like watching a movie with an old friend. All they do is crack jokes and poke holes in the plot, and maybe drink a sip of the quickly-wasting bottle of soju they’re passing around. Easy watching, Taeyong likes that, he’s barely paying attention to Sadoko climbing out of the tv over Jaehyun’s laughter. By the time it’s all over Jaehyun’s gone a lot quieter.

It’s barely nine when Taeyong turns to face him. Barely nine and there sits Jaehyun, slumped against the cofa cushions, asleep. Taeyong sighs. It can’t be helped.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t watch for just a moment, but soon enough, he shuffled off to bed. 

  
  
  
  


Taeyong assumes Jaehyun’s gone when he walks into the sitting room to see no one there. Whatever, he has work today, he catches his reflection in a cabinet across the room and decides he  _ needs _ hairgel.

And there’s jaehyhun- in front of the bathroom mirror- stretching the skin on his cheek and peering at it. He jumps when he notices Taeyong.

“What are you doing?” he reaches past Jaehyun for the blue bottle of hairgel that looks like alien goo in it’s container.

“Uh, just checking for spots?” replies Jaehyun, taken aback but not embarassed.

“Look… i have work, do you mind cooking yourself breakfast? I’m really sorry-”

“-No it’s fine! I was the one who fell asleep, after all. If you want i’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

Taeyong sighs, slicking his white hair back before buttoning the top of his shirt. “Just give me your number. We can try again.” really, he’s thinking about what shade of burgundy his tie should  be, too preoccupied to be charning. He decides on his 20% red 80% brown one just as he’s handed a rosegold phone.

“Very fancy,” Taeyong raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t think bartenders got paid that much.”

“More than you i bet,” replies Jaehyun  with a glint in his eye. He’s unscrewing the cap on the listerine like he’s been living here for months.

Taeyong laughs. “Is that a joke about the shit heap i live in or about how i take my job too seriously?”

“Take your pick.”

  
  
  


There’s a slice of cake on Taeyong’s desk when he gets to work, which is most definitely a bad thing.    
From across the cubicle that girl with the short hair gives him a sheepish smile, a sad sort of look, he needs to find Ten.   
It’s not hard- just follow the noise to the short stack of a source. Ten’s laughing so his nose crinkles. All faked up again- his eyeliner looking especially sharp and tie especially novel today. He’s holding a blue bag and there’s a bottle sticking out of the top, cap wrapped in gold foil.    
“I wasn’t even expecting it!” he’s saying to henry(who’s wearing a real life waistcoat).   
“You worked hard,” replies henry. He doesn’t falter when he sees Taeyong standing there.   
“Taeyong!” says Ten, smirking like he didn’t get Taeil drunk at the funeral yesterday. “Did you hear the news?”   
Taeyong decides not to give him the satistaction. His face is all shades of bemused “Yes, of course. Congratulations.”    
“You know what that means?”   
“Yeah, i do,” it means Taeyong  _ still  _ can’t afford that watch he saw the other day. It means he wasn’t charming enough. Maybe he should dye his hair black? Take director executive Joohyun out for drinks? Leave a bottle of Old Sea Dog whiskey on Siwon’s desk?

“Remember your wallet,” Ten’s grinning now. His tie has rubber ducks on it, fucking annoying is what it is.

“God, just text me about it.”

Taeyong’s barely  taken two steps when he gets it.   
_ ‘you’re<3bitter<3’-  _ he ends up switching off his phone.

 

Yuta isn’t going to fork over the money for the booth, which makes it a 50-50 split between Taeyong and Taeil, who’s chatting to that one bartender as he fiddles with the clasp on his yellow belt.    
Yuta doesn’t even bother paying for his own drinks, let alone the redhead he’s brought with him. She’s got her hand permanently clutching his right forearm and too much blush or too much alcohol. Taeyong really can’t tell.   
So while Ten tells the story of ‘how he got promoted! *wink*’ no one notices Yuta claw-grabbing Taeil’s wallet. He leafs through the notes before taking a clump of them and discretely slipping them into his pocket. Taeyong turns a blind eye, just this once.   
“Whatever,” he says to contribute to the conversation.   
“You’re so bitter,” Ten bumps Taeyong’s shoulder.   
“No, it’s just-”   
“Jealousy talking.”   
Taeyong shuts up and lets Yuta “pay” for the next round.

 

There’s this thing about the office. The shoebox cubicles and high levels of watercooler visits make news spread like wildfire, and gossip even more so, but Taeyong’s still surprised when he get’s the text.

_ Jaehyun: heard u didnt get it:(( _

Taeyong sighs. His cubicle is even stuffier than usual, considering Ten gets Leeteuk’s old office which stereoptypically faces out to the city. Huge desk and all that. They all know it wasn’t his wife who used to call around and leave lipstick stains on the mahogany.    
_ I had to pay for Tens drinks _

It takes only a few seconds to get a response.   
_ Jaehyun: next rounds on me? _   
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

More often than not, Taeyong ends up at his cousin’s bar, just because. Well- second cousins on his father’s side, Hongbin Lee, interested in babes and cars and things he can do while drunk.

Portly guy. He’s frugal but let's Taeyong drink for free, really, it’s what keeps them close. That’s precisely why Yuta loves to go there, his similarities with Hongbin are unnatural, all the way from lean girls in tennis skirts to the colour of the machines at the pachinko parlour just a short walk down the road. 

“I fucking hate them,” Yuta would say, only able to drink because of the happy hour specials board after gambling his gas money on the only unbroken machine. “I never win.”

And Hongbin hums in understanding. “Need a lift home?”- so Taeyong gets dragged there a lot.

He did not expect it from Jaehyun, however. There’s a cold hand in his (perfectly sized, mind you) coat pocket as they walk dangerously close to the establishment.    
_ I know a place,  _ Jaehyun had said and Taeyong had more than half a mind to believe it was a quiet cafe he could fall in love in. Not with Jaehyun honestly- the whole scene isn’t his style, though his mind falls drunkenly(despite his body being sober) for the way Jaehyun’s slacks hug his body.    
No, Taeyong doesn’t do cafe-love, doesn’t do happiest-couple-on-earth-he-bought-me-flowers-on-the-first-date!-love, he doesn’t do love with multitudes of dashes separating keywords such as ‘roses’, ‘chocolate’, ‘prom’, an ‘unlikely encounter’ or ‘daydreaming’. He thinks, if it’s ever to happen, he wants a little conflict. Pulled apart by two forces, possibly, only to reunite. Something meaningful that Tae-Song Kim would compose the soundtrack to. Something more than  _ oh, Jaehyun’s little smiles keep making me crash into doors.  _

Beggars can’t be choosers. Taeyong begrudgingly clinged to what he got when Ten asked him about his extra layer of foundation yesterday.  _ My skin’s really bad today,  _ he’d lied, recalling the night before when he’d bashed into the door of his bedroom, too distracted with thoughts of that fucking smile. Jaehyun has  _ dimples,  _ which Taeyong sort of deemed as ugly before this whole thing. Now they’re the reason his nose bruises bright purple. Only yesterday he was down in the dumps about the whole ‘Ten’s my new boss’ thing. He’s still upset about it really and it’s just another thing on the silver-plated  platter of his life.

 

He’s brought to his cousin’s bar, not paying mind to it until the glowing letters of  _ Ruby’s Place’  _ flash in his peripherals. Ruby is a made up woman apparently, somewhat based on Hongbin’s ex that he never seemed to get over. She lives in Shanghai now- Jiangsu province- a part time fashion photographer who once tasted fame and decided to ask for a different dish. 

“I know the owner,” Jaehyun says with a grin, pulling his hand out of Taeyong’s pocket, adjusting the collar of black turtleneck. Hopefully it’s a fashion choice rather than a necessity. It certainly  _ looks  _ fashionable, in any case. 

Taeyong wonders how Jaehyun knows the personified version of a dive, in all senses of the word, then he remembers family loyalty and praises Hongbin for his ‘diligence’ in his mind like his father can even reach there. (well)   
He also wonders how much Yuta would jokingly disapprove of Jaehyun’s pierced ears. The big hypocrite, him. Taeil would love to have another person to dazzle honestly. He plays it well, makes his endearing qualities look subconscious when he’s well aware of how his ‘artistic side’ makes panties drop in every corner of Seoul. Harmless, older-than him, kid, Taeyong thinks. A softy.   
And Ten, let’s not think about that.

“He’s my cousin,” Taeyong replies, holding the door open for Jaehyun in a slight daze.  _ Ladies first. _

“Really? Well-” Jaehyun starts to say but closes his mouth as soon as they’re both standing just by the door to let the sound wash over them. The clangs of pots from the kitchen just beyond the bar(fish and chips exclusive) suggest a barfight.

Taeyong sighs and sits at the bar, two empty seats between him and a girl who just spilled her drink all over herself. “Keep going, that’s just how the kitchen sounds.”

“He used to be my basketball coach,” Jaehyun says, taking the seat next to Taeyong. “In my senior year, when I had the time for that kind of thing.”

Taeyong raises his eyebrows. “Hongbin was?”

“Yeah, Hongbin Lee? Is he your cousin-”

“Jaehyun!” Taeyong wilts a bit at the sight of Hongbin, who must have the hearing of a mole to swoop in as soon as he heard his name. He’s got dried hairgel under his fingernails and a red mark from where a razor cut his chin while shaving. All the attire of a hardboiled detective on tv, just missing the trenchcoat and stoicness. “You’re back! And with Taeyong of all people.” (what’s that supposed to mean?)

But Jaehyun’s smiling again, a bewildered look, and the way he shrugs off his coat makes Taeyong draw his attention to his broad shoulders. He’s disgusted with himself at times.

“So you never told me about that girl you brought here yesterday…” Hongbin trails off, letting his eyebrows finish his sentence, they wiggle so much that they could be mistaken for the animator of Donald Duck’s work. You know, over stylising anything, but this is a real person. How does he manage it?

“Oh! Her!” Jaehyun’s face lights up and Taeyong feels his stomach fall out of his ass.  _ Of course Jaehyun was here with a girl. _ “That’s sooyoung, my coworker.”   
“Oh? Someone at home?” Hongbin asks. His eyebrows haven’t stopped, but his tone is more reserved. He invites himself to the seat by Taeyong, almost spilling his drink everywhere when he turns his wrist to check his watch, forgetting he’s holding a beerbottle.

“No one,” Jaehyun responds and Taeyong visibly sighs in relief, to which Jaehyun mouths, ‘you seriously think I’d do that to you?’.

“Really? Well, being single’s fun and all, but when you find her make sure you marry her. I made that mistake before,” Hongbin laughs dryly, eyes going to his own hands. 

“-anyway,” Taeyong coughs, determined to do some damage control and change the topic. “I never knew you coached basketball!”

“Oh yeah! Jaehyun was the star of the team,” Hongbin gets up and walks behind the bar, pulling a tacked photo off the corkboard which is overpopulated by cover band flyers and pin up girls. “Look.”

Jaehyun takes the photo from Hongbin and peers at it closely before throwing his head back in laughter. Taeyong looks at it, a team photo, snorting when he sees Jaehyun’s chubby face and old blonde hair.

“Bleached hair, really?” he says, running a hand along the matte finish of the photo. He expected it to be black and white, even though it was only taken 5 years ago.

“I was quite the bad boy, you know,” Jaehyun grins like he’s proud of it. “The ladies loved me, I got a heap of cards in homeroom on valentine's day,” and then he laughs. Taeyong doesn’t get the joke until much later but he laughs anyway, hand covering his mouth, shoulders shaking. 

“This whole situation feels like a shitty romcom,” he says, taking his hand away from his mouth so his voice isn’t too quiet. The kitchen still sounds like it’s on fire. Once, it was, a simple chip-pan one that resulted in a broken oven. Whatever works. “You, an ex basketball star.”

“Truly a story for the young adult section,” Jaehyun grins, nudging Taeyong’s side with his knuckles before flagging the bartender.    
He tips generously when they’ve ordered drink after drink after drink, explaining that he “knows what it’s like to be a bartender,” Hongbin calls him soft. For once, Taeyong agrees with something Hongbin has to say.

“It was nice catching up with you,” says Jaehyun, flashing Hongbin a smile who pulls him in for a bonecrushing hug. 

“Do come again,” he holds the door open for Taeyong when they go.

“Of course, you know how Yuta is.”

“Oh! Tell him they fixed the pachinko machines last week!”

“...I’m sure he knows.”

 

Jaehyun puts his hand in Taeyong’s coat pocket again and asks “So where are you taking me now?”

It’s getting colder, now that the sun’s last rays have already burnt through. Yesterday, the hailstones gathered in the plant pots Taeil keeps on his windowsills. He has a green thumb, supposedly, a love for flowers. Sunflowers are his favourite, Taeyong bets. You know how he is. Unfortunately it looks like hailstones might be an issue again.

Taeyong scoffs. “Aren’t you the one who took  _ me  _ out for drinks?”

“Hmm, I guess you’re right. I think Doyoung’s staying at his friend’s tonight, so we could go back to mine?”

They both know the answer before Taeyong even agrees.

 

“I actually have work tomorrow,” Taeyong surveys the sitting room “area”(sitting room, laundry room, kitchen and dining room all in one with the help of a mini fridge, a coffee table and a bottle of washing detergent). Oh, student life, how Taeyong does not miss it. A Bleach poster is plastered by Doyoung’s bedroom door, the television has a coat hanger stuck in the back.

“Is that a problem?” asks Jaehyun, crashing face first onto the sofa. It’s a ratty loveseat you’d expect to find in stripclubs or a distant relatives house.

“Who cares, Ten’s my boss now, the whole world has already gone to shit,” Taeyong replies, two thumbs up, nudging Jaehyun with his knee. “Move over.”

“Hey hey hey, my house, my rules. Go sit on my bed and then we’ll talk.”

“Whatever,” Taeyong sits on Jaehyun’s legs, grinning when he hears Jaehyun groan ‘too heavy’. “Not if you’re going to have that attitude about it.”

“Fine, just get off me! You’re way heavier than you look.”

“I thought you wanted me on you?”

“Not with that attitude!”

 

They end up watching this terrible shoujo movie after Taeyong’s phone lights up-  _ 1 message from Kim Taehyung-  _ and the time says only 20:28. Not how life works- you don’t just go and fuck a sort of stranger at eight and lie in bed, untalking, until you manage to fall asleep.   
Maybe Taeyong wouldn’t mind, maybe(definitely) if it was Jaehyun. But that’s not to say Jaehyun feels the same.   
So, he suggests a movie, Jaehyun’s drank too much to not feel a bit like he’s in pandemonia so he agrees because he ‘definitely, 100 percent, will not, completely sure, and he couldn’t be more sure than he already is, won’t fall asleep.’- his clumsy wording, not Taeyong’s.

The movie vaguely reminds him of Oh Hyerin, Yuta’s crazy ex girlfriend. Then, a memory resurfaces of them going to see it in the cinema, him, Yuta, Hyerin and his date, who he forgets the name of. Double dates always end in jealousy. Secretly, at the time, Taeyong was jealous of Hyerin.   
But that’s another story.

So he instead appreciates how Jaehyun rolls his socks- up then back over itself, the correct way in his book. That just leads to a small glance at Jaehyun’s legs, how perfect they are, all long and propped up on the coffeetable so Taeyong can’t see the screen fully. Not that he’s been watching much of the movie anyway, he’s already seen it.

When the screen goes dark and redirects Jaehyun to his netflix ‘recommended for you’ list, he suddenly turns to face Taeyong. “I can’t believe I had to sit through that movie just so I could,” Jaehyun’s hand rests on his shoulder now. It’s attentive. Reluctant. “Kiss you-”

“Woojae!” an unfamiliar voice calls and Jaehyun groans and lurches away. His fingers now pinch the bridge of his nose instead of resting just above Taeyong’s shoulderblades, he sighs for an impossibly long time, well beyond his years, like he’s been ‘working the farm for decades’ and ‘you kids had it so easy. All I had to play with as a child was sticks and stones and pieces of string.’

The man standing at the door, probably Doyoung considering how he has house keys in his right hand and his left hand on his heart, looks just like a bunny caught in the headlights, not even foreboding enough to draw similarities between him and a deer.

“Who’s your friend?” he asks and Taeyong notices his gap tooth, among other things, like his fur jacket typically seen on drug smugglers trying to get past airport security without swallowing weed and shitting it out. He’s got a snowhat on with flaps(if Taeyong didn’t know any better he’d assume they were covering rabbit ears), an orange tuft of hair falling over his forehead. Definitely a college student who doesn’t want to pay the heating bill this month. “Am I already replaced? And to think I,” a hand on his chest “Kim Dongyoung, lent you my shoes last week because you stepped in dogshit and were in a rush. You’ve sure pulled the wool over my eyes, you snake-”

“Doyoung, stop,” Jaehyun sounds physically in pain as he finally speaks up. “I thought you were staying at Hansol’s?”

Hansol, as in Ji Hansol? Yuta and Ten are always talking about him. “Gee, funny story but hansol’s sort of fighting with his roommate, and, well, I didn’t want to listen to them arguing all night.”

“It’s that bad?”

“You have no idea.”

Taeyong, who’s been quiet the whole time, finally brings himself to speak up. “I can leave if you want,” he says, checking the message from Taehyung who still won’t stop complaining about his boss. Can relate.

“No no, Doyoung was  _ just  _ about to go back to his room. Right?”

Doyoung gulps then nods and scurries along. Taeyong feels a stab of sympathy for him, only witnessing Jaehyun's icey glare from a ¾ view.

“Tonight’s not the night,” he sighs, fiddling with the cufflinks on his shirt. They’re brass, a present from his mother.

“No but you have my number now,” Jaehyun leans over and  _ doesn’t do anything  _ but look. “Are you tired, or will I show you my impressive CD collection?”

 

So they do  _ that,  _ and damn, it is impressive. Jaehyun must’ve ordered a good few of them in, other albums such as MADE aren’t so obvious, but they remind Taeyong oddly of Ten.   
“I used to burn a lot of CDs,” Jaehyun’s saying, flicking through his multitudes of IU albums. 

“What happened?” asks Taeyong, thumbing through the little lyrics booklet of 6god. He can’t understand a word, but still hums along when it comes up on shuffle through sheer muscle memory. He has his songs on shuffle a lot, ever since a pair of earphones ended up in his audiojack and he thought  _ hey, I like music, why don’t I ruin my hearing so I’ll never be able to listen to it again. _

“Doyoung broke the computer.”   
They laugh eachother to slumped bodies against the woodchipped walls.

  
In the end, it’s Jaehyun who sleeps on the sofa through pure insistence and a lack of a double bed. Taeyong wonders how they’ll ever work out, then when he sees a doraemon plushie perched on Jaehyun’s desk he realises it doesn’t worry him in the slightest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope u lovelys liked this !!!!!!!!!!! thank you to everyone who commented on chapter 1, it's the reason why i updated omg !  
> critique is rly appreciated, as always <333


	3. Chapter 3

 

Taeyong is used to waking up in unfamiliar places. There was that moment of nymphomania as soon as he got his own flat, getting fucked by anything with a pulse, lying next to some warm body. Always too warm. that's generally how his hook ups went, and that was all fine and dandy, he still doesn't regret it.

 

He wakes up, as things go, lying in Jaehyun's bed. It has these striped pillows taking up an incredible amount of space. The duvet was kicked to the floor sometime in his sleep and it still lies there. He sighs and rubs his eyes until they sting a bit from where the eyelashes push in, his white hair is in front of them when he opens them again and for a moment he thinks he woke up in a snowstorm. In the distance, the rain falls lazily, barely pattering against the window. It's nice for when you have plans to stay inside, but there's this little thing called public transport that makes Taeyong die a little inside. Where did he leave the car? Was it- was it at his flat still? He definitely remembers walking to Jaehyun's yesterday, feeling quite pleased with himself as he watched Jaehyun unlock the front door. It was cold.

 

He checks his phone firstly, Taehyung from finance is talking about how he moved branches and "hopes to see Taeyong soon". Taeyong sighs, and maybe smiles, at the thought of seeing him after so long. To top things off, Taehyung's always been terrible with public image which is detrimental when working in the transport department. All tabloids for days. Taeyong had to start burning them when the winter got particularily harsh last year.

Taehyung's always been nice and selfless in that way that often replaces brains, which means it'll be a bit hard dealing with Ten and the specific swindellers, people like Yuta, who call themselves old boys and buy eachother alcohol in hopes that they'll be offered some too. Taeyong has a bit of fondness in his heart for them. After all, their niceness gets him paid.

 

He practically rolls off the bed and curls in on himself as he puts on the same outfit he wore yesterday. His sweater smells like booze and his (would you believe) jeans smell like the snow they'd trudged through yesterday. Taeyong doesn't wear jeans if he can help it, but they come off as casual, he supposes that's where Taeil gets all his love from. A man who looks like he was dragged through a bush backwards on his way to work must be in his element, surely? And Taeyong knows that Jaehyun would laugh knowingly if he showed up with a fucking wedding entourage.

He resists the urge to snoop on his way out, and as soon as Doyoung spots him from 

the kitchenette, it's too late anyway.

 

"Rough night?" he says, eyes flicking between Taeyong's bedhead and crestfallen expression. Taeyong would call it calculated if he didn't know any better.

"Oh, not now," Taeyong groans. He's not scared of coming off as too friendly. Either that, or plain rude. He hopes Doyoung gets it, that Doyoung's a good judge of character.

Well. He picked a more than perfect roommate, Taeyong thinks with some first hand embrassment.

"Sit, sit, have some breakfast."

-who is Taeyong to refuse? He sits with a view of the unpainted drywall. The kitchenette is only sort of seperate from the sitting room. The wooden floors become grey tiles with plenty of burn marks. 

"Yeah," Doyoung cringes when he looks at the floor. "We sort of drop saucepans a lot. Don't even ask about the time when Jaehyun tried to make pancakes."

Taeyong defies. "What happened?" he asks, looking about the small space, there's a tacky microwave placed on the plastic lid that covers the oven hobs. That in itself is enough to judge their culinary skills, but there's still the counters being used like shelves, textbooks are stacked on the one that Doyoung leans back against. He cringes at these, too.

"He tried to flip the pancake in the air and ohmygod the pan part flew off the handle! It was so fucking funny," Doyoung replies with a grin. He holds up two cereal boxes and raises his eyebrows. Taeyong points to the cheerios even though, on a bad day, he wouldn't pick either. "You wouldn't believe how angry our other roomate got."

"Other roomate?"- it's hardly an apartment for two people in the first place.

"Yeah, didn't Jaehyun tell you about Kun? I mean, he moved out but he still visits sometimes."

Taeyong takes the spoon that's handed to him and wipes a teastain off it with his sleeve, which may or may not make it dirtier. Hongbin should really clean his counters, but Taeyong knows not to make a fuss at risk of becoming one. "No, he didn't actually," he responds simply, eyes down like he's never seen cheerios in his life. It's admittably been a while.

"No wonder, I saw how busy you two were-"

 

"Sorry ladies, am I interrupting?" Jaehyun appears out of seemingly thin air, taking a seat across from Taeyong. He doesn't miss the eye roll, then. What's the point?

In any case, he looks so good. So very... Jaehyun, with his perm falling over his eyebrows and his sleepiness. He always looks tired. it's not worrying, Taeyong thinks, that's just how it is.

Taeyong reaches across the table and pulls at Jaehyun's t shirt so it covers his bare shoulder again. He wonders if it came off too motherly, as his friends always accuse him of being. He usually scoffs when they say that and continues to carry Taeil to the taxi.

"I was wondering the same thing last night," Doyoung says with his smirk that just comes off as a smile. :]. "And I'm still wondering it, maybe I should pretend I forgot something at Hansol's?"

"Do that," Jaehyun says, entirely too annoyed. Taeyong almost finds Doyoung charming. Maybe in another lifetime, where he hasn't just woken up without Jaehyun next to him. 

  
  
  


They turn to eachother, like two student friends after the teacher said something stupid, and laugh. It makes Taeyong feel a bit weak despite his perfect night of sleep. 

A man just walked under the bus shelter with them, rain damping his wide shoulders that're covered with the remnants of a wellworn jacket. It's quiet as he puts on these earphones, and suddenly, the only sound is the tinny music of  _ I Got A Boy _ playing and the rain hitting the roof.    
So there they are, laughing, and Taeyong sure doesn't know a lot about snsd other than Yuta's love for Yoona( _ "I mean... I'm not saying anything, but I'm sorta saying something, have you seen her... uh... her? -Damn! Will somebody fucking fix these machines!" _ ), but he can recognise a great song when he hears it.

"Kun," Jaehyun says, reaching out to pat the man's shoulder. Kun's shoulder, Taeyong supposes. He turns to face them. His side profile doesn't really do his thick eyebrows justice, and they rise up to his fringe as his eyes widen, he pulls an earphone out. 

"Jaehyun! I didn't notice you," he says but he isn't really smiling. It goes a bit sad in a way that overcast weather was built for. "How's Doyoung?"

"Ah, he's good, but more importantly-" Kun snorts at this "-How are you?"

"Not good, honestly, I'm still sorting some stuff out to do with my passport. The picture looks like I'm like, 12 or something."

"Don't you usually?" Jaehyun replies, eyebrows raising as he grins. It mirrors Ten's  _ I-can't-believe-what-I'm-hearing _ look. Taeyong doesn't really like to think about similarities between them but it's all there. 

"God Jaehyun, never change," Kun laughs. "I'll miss it. I'll miss you and," a sigh "Doyoung."

"I'll tell him that- oh! Taeyong, is that your bus?”

  
  
  


It was his bus. He scrunches his ticket up in his right hand, left mindlessly scrolling through his work emails.

He doesn't get many. It's not that there's nothing for him to do, more that the 'old boys' are too close to pension to work a computer and the younger ones are either below his rank, or, like his "boss"(Taeyong grinds his teeth at this), not at all afraid to be passive aggressive in person.

He's not late for work. This is one of the better parts of the day, after the odd Conversation With Kun and the fact that he's showing up wearing frathouse clothes. He's sure Taeil will smile on sight to reassure him. 

 

"Taeyong!"  comes the slightly-screechy voice. to fake momentary deafness would be to give up. He turns.

"Is it true?" asks Ten, who's looking particularily chipper today. He twists his tie around his index finger just to unravel it, hair slicked back, it looks nice that way. Must've been a function. Ten's not a fan of washing hair gel out by choice.

Taeyong wonders if he ran a brush through his hair this morning and runs a hand through it for lack of anything better. He feels inadequet, not even his clothes have anything over Ten today, and that's not such a good state to be in. But Ten's always been especially handsome and no amount of foundation's going to help reach his level. Taeyong gives up and drops his hand to his side. "Is what true?" 

"That you've got a little boyfriend..." he can hear the ';)'.

"Are you reading tabloids again?"

"Nah, just Yuta's shitty texts."

"Oh?"

"Hongbin said a little something, apparently. Whatever," he says with a swish of his hand. "I think it's cute! You should invite him out with us!"

 

The last time this happened, Taeil brought his fuckbuddy to the back of the bar with the rest of the group, same old booth wordlessly reserved. You know, the one with the brandy stains.

She wrinkled her nose at Yuta's blue business suit, and Taeyong telepathically agreed. In a sane person's opinion, it is not agreeable in the slightest to wear a blue suit. It was an eyesore, too bright a shade, like a Mardi Gras parade in the middle of the-bar-that's-not-Hongbin's. All the conversation topics had virtually disappeared, mostly supplied by Yuta, who likes describing girls in the same way shitty erotica writers describe the 'plushness' of their female characters' lips. 

_ Please don't try it _ , Taeil's eyes had screamed, mouth going on about his day at the office. 

He left her for a lifeguard only two weeks after.

 

"Nope," Taeyong says automatically as he checks his watch for effect.

"It'll happen some day, even if it's an ambush. Now, do you want to borrow a tie from my office?"

  
  


There are rarely moments where Taeyong get’s the chance to forget work. After leeteuk’s death, things have shifted around a bit, with him landing a slightly better job.   
And then, there’s also the Taehyung matter. 

 

“Wow, nice to see you Taeyong!” he says with a smile like he’s just had his fucking mind blown. Taeyong returns it, if with a bit of acting. He  _ likes  _ Taehyung in the same way that he  _ likes  _ compliments and petting dogs. The Taehyung matter, turns out, is just Taehyung- and not a matter at all.   
He walks into the building with his head up. He carries a briefcase that Taeyong dutifully offers to take for him, but Taehyung just shakes his head and pulls him in for a hug. 

 

They were close, back in finances, it was easier. Taehyung had stayed there. Taeyong ended up in transportation, and well, that’s going as bad as you’d expect. 

 

He shows Taehyung to the same old cubicle that was once occupied by that canadian girl- the one with the curly fringe and the hooked nose. 

“Ah, humble,” Taehyung says, practically throwing his briefcase to one side. He underestimates how weak the separators are. “Tae, you’ve got a cubicle too, right?”

Taeyong smiles despite himself. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

“Why?” Taehyung asks, plugging his fancy keyboard into the desktop. Taeyong frowns- he had to buy a laptop himself.

“Because you’re Tae too,” he points out, leaning against cubicle walls that are on the verge of collapsing.

“Well then,” Taehyung laughs- a prelude “just call me Hyung!”

  
“Oh, fuck  _ right  _ off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this ones a mess but hope you guys like it anyway !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also, the kun in this chapter is based on the kun from my winkun fic Brass !!  
> comments greatly appreciated ! <3


	4. Chapter 4

“You know, you’re not so bad,” Taeil says, leaning his crossed arms over the front wall of Taeyong’s cubicle. 

“I’d hope so,” Taeyong replies as he moves another email to his spam subsection. “We  _ have _ been friends for years now.”

Taeil pauses, like he’s just realised something life changing. Considering him as a whole, it’s probably the fact that he’s colourblind. Blue and yellow. “Oh no no no, I don’t mean to me. I’m just thinking I could set you up.”

Huh, Taeyong thinks, has Ten not already been running his mouth about his “bartender fuckbuddy”? It seems as though Taeyong should have more faith in him. Then again, Ten likes to smile while reprimanding. There’s not  a lot more to say, that sums it up pretty nicely.    
“Oh wait-” shit, Taeil’s looking up to the ceiling again, chin jutted upwards which means he’s having another epiphany. “I think Ten said something-”

“Of course he did, I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

“So what’s going on with you and  _ Jaehyun?  _ Are you fucking?” Taeil asks, though he’s probably not trying to sound so blunt. It’s a running theme- his personality tries to match his well meaning looks, fails from time to time.    
Back in college, he’d managed to bed a fair few girls this way, with his looks that screamed ‘ _ I’ll have your babies’ _ , before making each one breakfast in the morning and sending them on their way. If you saw the wall just opposite his dorm’s front door, it meant you were either a fling or a part of his group of rotating friends, though sometimes you could be both. Taeyong isn’t sure to this day if Taeil knew what he was doing, and which option would be more surprising.

“I don’t know,” he honestly replies, for once in his life. Ten sent him an email about the supposed lack of “team synergy”, to which Taeyong replies with a text saying ‘ _ I bet you couldn’t even spell synergy before you looked it up just there’.  _

_ jokes on u i grew up on astrology magazines _

_ and domt speak to ur boss that way _

“How come?”

“Things are… in the way.”

 

He arranges a date (if he dares call it what it’s intended to be) after work on friday, mostly because he wants to, but also because Taeil’s list of Taeyong’s Potential Soulmates runs further than his own mouth during happy hour tuesdays.    
Relationships are difficult, but dating? Not so much. Nothing that Taeyong can’t handle. And though he of course wants his dramatics- longing and tragedy- he also likes what’s comfortable. Maybe, he even likes Jaehyun. Is it okay for him to admit that in his narration yet? Or is it better to act like he’s in denial, like so many other main characters?

It’s a date, he thinks. Drinks often are. Coffee, even more so. Suddenly Taeyong feels like a college student again- or he would, if he could understand the feeling of being in love in college. There were more pressing matters back then.

Now, the matter is that he has no idea what to wear for the first time in his young-to-mid-adult life. Date attire is casual, right? He thinks of what Jaehyun usually wears- jeans that are tight(thank god, Taeyong doesn’t think he could deal with anything else) and sweaters that are reminiscent of what is referred to as Yuta’s Hipster Phase.    
Taeyong doesn’t want to overdress, though the possibility is quickly becoming more likely. Especially since he’s considering all this on a tuesday night. A drink at the bar has his name on it- Ten’s tab. He slips his shoes on and steps out the door.

 

And so friday comes. With it, the nervousness and distinctly out of character fretting that Taeyong hasn’t suffered from so far. Life truly is hard on him, he thinks with dismay, looking between two sweaters that are nearly the same, but one is grey and the other is black.    
He knows he’ll look good either way if he’s honest, which only serves to make the matter worse. On one hand, he knows the black one suits him perfectly, but on the other, the grey one makes him look warm.    
Sighing, he pulls the black sweater on. This whole situation is very Taeil of him.   
Speaking of, Taeil had tried to give him some blubbery dating advice on tuesday over a pint, even though his last properly stable relationship was during his architecture course(he whined about this a bit too).  _ Girls have all the luck,  _ he had informed the sticky booth table, face pressed up against it. Taeyong managed to feel bad for him.  _ If they want to see someone again they can just “forget” their bra on the bedroom floor. What can we do? We only have boxers, or maybe socks.  _   
Everyone had ignored him, except for Yuta, who just said  _ don’t you have to work tomorrow?  _ And left it at that.

 

The coffee shop is exactly the same as every coffee shop on earth, so there’s not much to say there. Though a white cat is perched on the newspaper dispenser a meter outside the red door, and it meows at Taeyong as he passes, who’s heart clenches up. Truth be told, he’s scared of cats, ever since his aunt’s one bit him when he was eight years old.    
To make matters worse, Jaehyun is sitting by the window and he laughs at how Taeyong flinches away from it. Okay, so far, so good- no Taeyong, stop being sarcastic this early into the date- it’s really his worst habit.

He attempts a smile and sits down while looking at his ankles, completely expected.

“Do I pretend that I don’t know about your cat phobia?” Jaehyun asks, leaning back in his chair. His amusement makes his eyes crinkle at the edges in a way that’d be unattractive unless you were him. Taeyong’s ashamed that he has to suppress a dreamy sigh. 

“I’d like that, yeah,” he says before glancing at the specials board on the back wall. Dating is easy, he’d thought. Look at him now, face deep in the plastic menu card instead of the crook of Jaehyun’s neck. (breathe Taeyong, you can do this, just be charming- you have a lot of practice with that… right?)

 

And so Taeyong, who’s been smooth as of now, manages to keep up conversation without embarrassing himself so much that he would have to fake his death and move to a remote island in the Caribbeans for the rest of his life. Which is always a good sign.    
Like, okay, they’re talking about Jaehyun’s course and his job and his other favourite coffee shops, which is fine- until.

“So… Y’know,” Jaehyun coughs, looks into his emptyish coffee cup as if they’re in the middle of a conversation and Taeyong’s interrupting something. Looking up, he goes a bit pink. “We’re going to… y’know. After this. Right?”

Taeyong looks back with wide eyes, sure getting some dick was the first plan, but that’s not all there is to it, right?`

“Or did I… did I read this wrong?” Jaehyun asks, more like mumbles. Taeyong’s glad he’s not the only one capable of being shy at the table. He’s just worse for it. Among his friends, truly the odd one out, he’s the only one who hasn’t propositioned someone at a wedding ceremony- but then again, he’d met Jaehyun at a funeral service. So. “Friends with, um, benefits?” Oh.  _ Oh. _

“Is this- is this not a date?” Taeyong manages out. It’s hard to ignore Jaehyun’s wide eyes. He really is clueless.

“Oh, thank  _ god. _ ”

“What is it?”

“Oh wow, I honestly thought you just wanted me for sex,” says Jaehyun, a smile slowly taking over his face. 

Uh, what? Since when was that a thing? “What the fuck-  _ why _ ?”

Jaehyun shrugs then. “I know your type. Plus, we only went out with intentions of fucking after, you know? I just wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“God, you’re clueless,” Taeyong replies, shaking his head with quiet laughter. Jaehyun grins back at him.

“Maybe a bit,” he agrees, drinks the last of his coffee in one go. “Let’s go out.”

  
  
  


The kiss isn’t anything otherworldly. No kisses are. But it is nice, and perfectly expected, and it just confirms the whole situation- they’re not just fucking.   
But there’s only one thing that can top it, and that’s how Jaehyun’s voice wavers slightly as he confesses. Like Taeyong didn’t already know he was in love. ( _ As if,  _ Jaehyun scoffs. He can’t act.)

 

And the sex, well that’s pretty great too. Now that they’re dating, they have all the time in the world.    
Unless Doyoung’s being a cockblock again. 

 

- _ fin- _

 

  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand it's a wrap. sort of. let me explain.  
> so, i want to write a sequel( not really sequel... just in the same businessy universe) featuring taeil or ten?? but i can't decide between johnil and johnten. any suggestions? :^)
> 
> thank you all for commenting on my story as i updated !! i understand this was a bit abrupt but i got out all that needed to be said. truth be told, ive been struggling with writing for a while. i felt if i didnt finish this now, itd be incomplete forever. so im really sorry;; thank you again for reading !
> 
> (also, you can add me on twitter @11dishwashers for writing updates ! :))

**Author's Note:**

> posting this bc im working rEAl hard on another fic atm and i wanna see what you guys think of this in the meantime !!  
> (unedited ngllll ) comments are realllllly appreciated,, more than u know <3333


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